PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR SEPTEMBER 6

[Mark Thibodeau]

<http://discovery.cctv.com/20070301/images/1172733852505_Img248434702_r.jpg>

On this day in *1901*, anti-statist anarchist *Leon Czolgosz* (pronounced:
"Czolgosz") walks up to President *William McKinley* at Buffalo's
Pan-American Exposition, extends his hanky-covered hand as if in offer to
shake, then squeezes off two rounds at point blank range. When Secret
Service agents grab Czolgosz and start beating the living snot out of him,
gentlemanly McKinley looks up from his stretcher and declares: "Don't let
them hurt him... Be easy with him, boys!" Eight days later, despite his
hearty "recovery diet" of raw eggs and whiskey, the popular President dies
of a kidney infection caused by the bullet that had ripped through his gut.
His Vice President, the maverick*Teddy Roosevelt*, takes over in the first
year of McKinley's second term. Two months after that, Czolgosz rides the
lightning to a meeting with his maker. His last words: "I am not sorry for
my crime."

***

On this day in *1966*, the science fiction show *Star Trek* makes its
network television debut on NBC, giving thousands of obsessive, sexless,
anal-retentive feebs a reason not to slit their wrists.
***

On this day in the year *2000*, government authorities see fit to inform we
plebes that asteroid *2000QW7 *had just hurtled within a cosmic pussy-hair
of planet Earth... four days after the near-miss! Making matters worse, the
Disneyland-sized space rock was first spotted by astronomers a mere SIX
DAYS before it's passing! So... how close did we come to witnessing an end
to civilization - or even perhaps an end to all LIFE as we know it? British
scientist*Lembit Opik* - organizer of an international co-operative effort
to counter the global threat posed by asteroids - answers that question
thusly: "It is as if someone had thrown a marble at you across a tennis
court and missed your head by the width of your hand."
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